December 22, 1947, Krakow, Poland. The former staff of Auschwitz - the deadliest German Nazi
concentration camp – hears their sentences read. After a month of gruesome testimonies,
23 defendants out of the 41 are sentenced to death by hanging.
One of them is Fritz Buntrock one of the most sadistic Nazi criminals.
Fritz Buntrock was born on 8 March 1909 in Osnabrück,
then part of the German Empire and he was a blacksmith and factory worker by profession.
In May 1935 Buntrock joined the SS and in January 1937 he joined the Nazi Party.
From December 1941 until August 1944, he belonged to the staff
of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp and prisoners gave him the nickname “Bulldog
“because he was sadistic, ruthless and he enjoyed beating and torturing the inmates.
At first, Buntrock worked as a guard supervising the working teams outside the camp where the
minimum working day numbered 11 hours. He was often seen beating the poor inmates with his
bullwhip without any reason. He used to whip them not only before they went out to labor
but also on their way back when they were starved and exhausted.
In 1943 Fritz Buntrock was promoted to a block leader and a reporting officer.
He took part in selections on the ramp and escorted poor victims to the gas chambers.
Buntrock also took part in the liquidation of the so-called “Gypsy Family Camp”.
The Nazis considered Roma and Sinti people as racially inferior and in December 1942
Heinrich Himmler issued an order to send all Roma and Sinti people from the Nazi occupied
territories to concentration camps including Auschwitz. Romani families deported to the
Gypsy Family Camp were held together, instead of being separated as was typical at Auschwitz.
The conditions in the camp were horrible. One holocaust survivor described it as hell on Earth.
The prisoners - half-crazed with hunger - were crammed inside the barracks which were icy cold.
To keep warm all the inmates had to huddle together.
On the 2nd of August 1944 , 2,897 surviving men, women, and children from this Gypsy family camp
were murdered in the gas chambers at Birkenau. While escorting the poor victims to the gas
chambers, Buntrock was seen kicking and punching them in the face brutally without any remorse.
Because the crematorium was out of order by this time, the bodies of the killed
prisoners were burned in trenches. After the war one witness testified
how the poor inmates had unsuccessfully battled with the SS with improvised weapons. However,
the SS crushed their opposition brutally and then loaded the prisoners into trucks and killed them.
After the end of the war, Fritz Buntrock was finally to face justice and pay for his crimes.
He was tried at the Auschwitz Trial which began in November, 1947 and lasted one month.
On the 22nd December, 1947, the Polish Supreme National Tribunal in Krakow
sentenced Buntrock to death by hanging.
He was 38 years old when he was executed on the 28th of January 1948,
There were no tears shed for Fritz Buntrock.
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